Roberto Luongo’s first-ever shutout with the Florida Panthers way back when came against Minnesota during a 0-0 shutout at the X. I know, I was there, only in a different capacity documenting the life and times of Bobby Lou, as Wild radio personality Kevin Falness calls him.

Yet, his save percentage against the Wild heading into tonight’s game was a personal low .892, which just shows you how much lack of success he’s had against Minnesota since.

Well, Luongo’s in one of those zones the entire NHL should be afraid of, pitching his third straight shutout tonight with 29 saves to knock off the Wild.

The Canucks overtook the Wild for the top spot in the Northwest Division with 18 points. The Wild had been first in the division since Oct. 14, or Game 2 of the season.

Ironically, I thought the Wild played its best game of the road trip tonight, but the Canucks were terrific in their own zone, giving the Wild little space, and then when the Wild broke free, Luongo was outstanding.

Pierre-Marc Bouchard was especially robbed — twice.

Jacques Lemaire was happy with his team’s performance other than it couldn’t score. Nik Backstrom was up to the task as well. His only blemish was Sami Salo’s one-timer through Steve Bernier’s screen. The breakaway goal by Daniel Sedin with 2:40 left didn’t matter. Wild wasn’t scoring tonight.

Lemaire had a couple funny lines, his best being a shot at the Vancouver media. Lemaire thinks of the Vancouver media with about as high a regard as Alex Burrows thinks of Bouchard (if it makes you feel better, I like you fellas).

“You notice there in the third, they’ve got five guys at their blue line and [their media’s] talking about our trap?” Lemaire said. “That’s a new trap.”

The Canucks media often interrogate Lemaire on the Wild’s style, which Lemaire abhors.

Here’s an interesting stat: Vancouver has been getting lots of points from the back end this season. The Canucks’ defensemen have combined for 36 points, led by Kevin Bieksa’s 11. By comparison, the Wild’s defensemen have scored 17 points (not counting Brent Burns’ one goal as a forward and Tomas Mojzis’ assist as a forward).

That would be the Wild’s brand new offensive blue-line corps, folks.

Interesting quote from Ryan Kesler in Sunday’s Vancouver Province. On the stiff arm up high he received from Mikko Koivu: “That’s about what you expect from a player like that.”

Yeah, Koivu’s a real dirty player, like that one time when he got his leg broken from a slash by Mattias Ohlund.  

As a supplement to my Sunday column, I also wanted to throw in some more quotes from assistant GM Tom Lynn on the injury policy. Unfortunately, space was tight, so this didn’t get in.

Two key things he noted. The policy is to protect the Wild players, he says.

He wouldn’t divulge his sources or the circumstances, but Lynn said he knows of two specific instances “where we’ve heard from players on the other team after a game that they knew about an injury to one of our players and their coach brought it up in their pregame. They said so and so had a wrist injury and someone else had a leg injury. So has it happened? Yes.
“If we come out and say [Pierre-Marc] Bouchard had back spasms for four or five days, it’s not like somebody’s going to spear him in the back. But sometimes coaches do say, ‘Make sure you play this guy physically.’”
Lynn also said the Wild can’t pick and choose what injuries they divulge. That’s why he won’t just come out and say what Marian Gaborik’s injury is or even Brent Burns.
“There are some injuries I can tell you about,” he said. “But if we say groin for Joe Smith and the next guy we say lower body, well then it must be a worse injury because they told us about Joe Smith’s groin. Like [Brent] Burns is an injury normally I’d tell you about, but we’re not for consistency sake.”

Ok, that’s it from here. I am finally flying home tomorrow from this road trip that seems like a month. If you consider it really started the day before the Dallas game, it’s been a long trek. I am spent.

Night.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 9th, 2008 at 12:27 am and is filed under Game coverage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.